Does intent matter?

[feuervogel]

If you say words that are known to be hurtful, be they the traditional slurs starting with n or c, among others, or words that people who are hurt by words like "lame" are telling you directly that they are hurtful words, your intent doesn't fucking matter.

You are willfully and directly causing harm because you refuse to understand their point of view and accept that your continued usage of those words is harmful.

That's an asshole thing to do.

Genderbitch has a post that's extremely on point: Intent! It's fucking magic!

Today, someone said a slur. It actually doesn’t matter what slur it was, because you see, he didn’t intend to hurt anyone and therefore it couldn’t possibly be a slur. Much like how intent magically protects the actions of all privileged fuckjobs, intent means that anything you say, no matter how many groups it hurts, what awful views it enables, no matter what systemic bigotries it props up through the usage of language that enforces social concepts that crush a marginalized group, it mystically negates all of that.

So if you out a trans woman? Your uncanny intent wraps around her and protects her from murder, harassment, degendering and objectification by the people you just outed her to! If you say something ableist, you’re not actually contributing to the system that demeans PWD because your intent will gird your words with alchemical shields, made of eldritch power themselves, that prevent the words from creating and furthering social associations between disability and being bad, wrong, broken or unwanted! I know? Isn’t it grand? I love magic!

Go read the rest.

Comments

[feuervogel]

It does. DX

Now I have people telling me I need a reality check, because in order to give a fuck about not offending someone, they have to either respect or care about that person. What sort of a fucking asshole is THAT? OH RIGHT, the kind of asshole who casually uses the word "t-w-lh--d."

[krait]

It amazes me how often the people demanding reality checks from others fail to perform their own... So sorry you're having to 'hear' these failures spouting off in your own journal.

I can tell I am either sleep-deprived or Pratchett-deprived, because my brain tried to fill in those dashes in the last word with a common term for fans of Twilight. :D